Where’s Your God Now Moses?

There are two romantic comedy icons for women of my generation. Lloyd Dobbler from Say Anything and Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles. Although I do hate to put us gals in piles I have to. Just like there are points of contention that formed different Islamic factions, I think you can know where a woman stands and her attitude about love based on which of these two lads she preferred. Lloyd Dobbler acolytes were often too smart for the room, and wore flannel shirts between 1991 and 1993. They dated guys in bands. Or even guys who openly wrote poetry in high school. And they’re convinced that somewhere in the world there is a guy who won’t care that they’re complicated and damaged. And despite protestations to the contrary they want to be rescued and worshipped like a pagan goddess, and be considered too precious to walk around broken glass.
On the surface Lloyd was a good guy. He was cute, earnest, and very caring. But he was also extremely co-dependent. All he wanted was to be with his girlfriend, essentially all the time. He left his family and friends to go with her to London with no clear plans as to what he was going to do once he got there.Now I like to be appreciated as much as the next girl, but I also like my boyfriends to have something more going on in their lives than me. You know hobbies and interests, and maybe even an education and a job.
A smart woman would also be troubled by the fact that Lloyd had no close male relationships. His three best friends were girls. And none of them seemed even remotely interested in him. His social life consisted of being an eunuch and baby-sitter for a suicidal Alanis Morrisette wannabe and her entourage. His only male friends were troglodytic drinking buddies that not even he respected. Lloyd lived with his single working mother older sister. And it’s established early in the film that Lloyd’s father is some kind of alpha male Army officer that wants him to follow in his footsteps. His father had been dragging him around the world from base to base, and only let him come back to the states so that he could finish high school. And Daddy Dobbler didn’t make the trip for his son’s graduation. So Lloyd has some Daddy issues and consequently some male intimacy issues. Can a man know how to be a man with a woman, if he doesn’t know how to be a man with other men? I don’t think so.
Now bear with me I only have two more criticisms of Mr. Dobbler. First thing the stalking. There is a fine line between romance and menace. And I think standing outside my window playing the song that was on the radio when we lost our virginities to each other is on the crazy side. That kind of thing would make me feel like he couldn’t live without me and had no intention of letting me live without him. Like maybe he pleasures himself to the memory while he’s dressed in my clothes and carves my name into his chest with the pen I gave him when I broke up with him. Anybody else imagining him repeating over and over to himself, “I gave her my heart. And she gave me a pen” as he slowly carves each bloody letter? Okay that might just be me. But it’s dawn in the scene so either he’s been at it several hours, or he’s been up all night and he’s sleep deprived and consequently a little difficult to reason with,. I like my men to have a bowl of Capn’ Crunch and workout in the mornings, not come over to my house with a freaky bold gesture.
Lastly I feel like the lack of ambition and strong sense of self really need to be stressed. He tries to mend the relationship between Diane and her father and writes letters foisting complicated emotions onto a teenage girl essentially making her responsible for his entire happiness. Diane comes back to him in a moment of weakness because she needs someone to support her because her father is going to prison. And Lloyd asks her if she came back because she needs him, or because she needs someone. Before she can answer he says he doesn’t care. He just wants her so much he doesn’t care if he’s being used. Lloyd is sad. Lloyd is pathetic. Lloyd if he was a real person would be twice divorced by 40 and a constant source of embarrassment to his children. Lloyd should be no one’s ideal man.
But Jake Ryan shouldn’t be anyone’s ideal man either. I will concede that Michael Shoeffling who played him in Sixteen Candles was a well constructed, attractive man. But he wore fair isle sweater vests and rolled his jeans. For those of you over 35 or under 25, rolling the cuffs of your jeans if you were a guy was an early sign of what eventually became metrosexuality. It was fussy and not at all butch to be seen doing it. It was fey on par with a man today who brags about using moisturizer on his face. Lots of straight guys who were in many ways traditionally masculine did it, but none will admit it unless you have photographic proof. I have a friend who was a drug addict and thief for 20 years. He contracted HIV while frequenting prostitutes all over the world. And he has openly stated that not having ever rolled his jeans is an argument in favor of him being a solid citizen. So hopefully I have illustrated the prejudice leveled against men who rolled their jeans.
Putting fashion aside Jake Ryan also had very bad associations. His best friends were cheerleaders and jocks. Lots of wonderful and worthwhile people were cheerleaders or athletic growing up, but I find it unlikely that 1980’s film stereotype jocks and their succubus were quality people. Raise your hand if a jock or cheerleader made fun of you in high school. That’s all I’m saying.
Jake drove a shiny red Porsche. His dad had a gold Rolls Royce and he lived in a large stately home. So how is it possible that Jake isn’t so superficial that it’s unbelievable that he’d dump the most beautiful girl in school for some quirky sophomore with a flat chest? But that is part of the mythos of Jake. Now I’m hesitant to let you infer that I’m saying that a rich popular teenage boy would never have chosen a not particularly cute girl with a good personality. Because maybe it could happen. Maybe. I’m sure this is a failure of imagination on my part. But come on. Really? The basic implausibility of the premise of the movie isn’t the fault of fictional person Jake. Jake has his own flaws. Like the fact that he punched an inebriated Chinese foreign exchange student in a moment of homosexual panic. Earlier in the same evening he spoke candidly about taking advantage of his girlfriend who was passed out drunk in his bedroom. He actually used the word “violate." Since when is non-consensual sex okay even in the confines of a committed relationship? But obviously Jake didn’t really give a crap about his girlfriend Caroline because he trades her for a pair of another girl's underwear. In exchange for the underwear Farmer Ted the geek, got to drive her home. Jake gave him no explicit instructions to act like a gentleman. He left someone he presumably was dating in the care of a freshman without a driver’s license who had been drinking. But the capper is that he had a girlfriend and was shopping around to trade her in for a younger model. I feel like Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments when Edward G. Robinson as pharaoh is taunting him, “Where’s your God now Moses?”. Where are my Gods now? I often look at myself and the women of my generation who surround me and I wonder “How did we get so fucked up”. It can’t have just been the single parent homes and the spiritually bankrupt culture of the 80’s and 90’s where religion was a dirty word. Something turned us into the fragmented, ineffectual, emotionally retarded people that we have to struggle not to be. I’m going to steal a page from the pundits and blame TV and movies. It’s all I’ve got.